Читать книгу Sweet Clover - Clara Louise Burnham - Страница 4

CHAPTER IV.

CLOVER'S ANNOUNCEMENT.

The next day Jack Van Tassel came home. The first warning the Bryants had of his arrival was in hearing the familiar whistle of a scrap from Carmen, which was Jack's particular call.

Only Clover and her mother were at home, Mildred having chaperoned the younger children to a lawn party in the neighborhood.

"It is Jack!" cried Clover before the footstep had reached the steps. She looked hopefully at her mother, who returned the significant gaze.

"He wouldn't whistle," continued the girl with soft eagerness, "if he weren't—if he weren't the same old Jack."

"I hardly feel equal to seeing him to-day," said Mrs. Bryant tremulously.

"You shall not, dear," was the hurried response, as Clover ran downstairs from her mother's room where they had been sitting. She threw open the house door.

"Clover herself," exclaimed the visitor, laughing with pleasure, and wringing her offered hand with painful cordiality.

"I'm glad you've come at last," she answered; "and you don't look sorry."

"Not a bit of it," was the breezy answer. "Where are Mrs. Bryant and Mildred, and the small fry? I want to see everybody."

"The girls and Frank will be inconsolable to miss your first call, but they've gone to a children's party; and mother, I am sorry to say, isn't able to see any one to-day." While the girl spoke, her eyes alternately met Jack's with a sort of wistful gladness, and then fell away. Her face expressed the relief she felt to be thus standing and talking in friendly, easy fashion with her old schoolmate.

"But come in and sit down," she added. "You did not come home at Christmas, so we have a whole year's talking to do."

"Let us talk in the boat, Clover. Sorry Mrs. Bryant isn't well. I'll call again when she can see me. It is just right for a sail. Don't you want to come?"

"Yes, indeed," returned the girl heartily. "I have had only one sail this summer. Let me go and get my hat, and say good-by to mother."

She ran upstairs and presently returned. Not a trace of yesterday's care appeared in her countenance as the two started out gayly on the road they had often traveled together.

Hyde Park still bore traces of being a country village. The young people walked through fields of sweet clover and goldenrod, where now massive hotels and blocks of granite and glass uprear. Chatting and laughing, they hastened on toward the boat-house.

"It is pleasant to be back, I declare," said Jack heartily, looking with affection over the billowy water, striped with greens and blues, which had been his boyhood's playground. "Father says old friends are best, and I believe he is right."

"Is he coming with us, this afternoon?" asked Clover half shyly.

"Why no," replied her companion, looking at her with undisguised astonishment. "You don't mean to say father has developed a taste for sailing while I have been off at the seat of learning?"

"He always liked it very well, didn't he?"

"Why, I believe he always preferred driving. I told Michael to put the Flirt in the water. Yes, there she is. Now for an old timer, Clover; the wind is superb."

The girl followed the speaker out upon the pier, and, resting her hand lightly in the one he offered, stepped into the boat. Jack followed, and they moved slowly along the little harbor and out through the narrow opening between pier and breakwater, which has ushered so many boating parties into the joys of a brisk voyage, and will do so no more forever.

Jack set the sail, and they began to move swiftly southward. The breeze was strong, and had already raised waves over which the boat sprang, striking a billow before she cut it, with a splash which echoed in the heart with a thousand invigorating memories. It was going to be what Mildred called a "jouncy" sail, and Clover, leaning back amid the boat's cushions, would have been supremely content could her mind have been set at rest upon one point.

Jack, unconscious of her reservation, bared his head and, holding the tiller with one hand, waved the other toward his companion. "Now I am at home," he declared.

Clover smiled and nodded in silence. She regarded him with less complacence than she had felt half an hour before. It was passing strange to feel a little shy and uncomfortable as she looked at Jack,—not to be able to chaff him concerning the little mustache that was a new acquisition, and which scarcely shaded his mouth.

The Flirt's white wings bore them past the dark pines on the shore, past the sea-wall of the pleasant park, and the canal which fed its little lakelets. Then on, past sandy beach and wild wood where the children picked flowers in early summer, past sloughs where adventurous boys skated in winter,—a deserted, unpromising, monotonously level bit of country, surely, to be chosen as a cynosure for the eyes of all nations; to be destined to become "the dazzling focus of a world's activity."

Clover, as she gazed, saw only her old playground. No vision came to her of a white city, lovely and unsubstantial as though fashioned from the clouds of heaven, and holy because the offering of the best of men's hearts and brains. No such foreshadowing came to blot out and lift her above her personal hopes and fears. She was recalled from absently viewing the landscape by Jack's cheery voice.

"Shall we put about?" he asked.

"Yes, we might as well," she replied, and as she lowered her head the boom swung over.

"I hope you won't get wet," he continued apologetically, for the spray was flying high and higher. "This wind is growing to be too much of a good thing. You must excuse my preoccupation, but I'm trying not to let you be drenched."

"Oh, never mind me," replied Clover. "You know you always said I was almost as good as a boy. I'm not going to lose my reputation on account of a few pints of water, I assure you."

"If I had only put in a reef," said Jack regretfully, "and you had your waterproof."

But the lake was growing boisterous and the facts remained that they had neither reef nor waterproof.

"I suppose we shall have to go in, but this is fine, Clover."

"Indeed it is; and does it really bring you to the conclusion that there is no place like home? I am interested, for you see I don't know any place but home."

"Is that a fact?" Van Tassel glanced at his companion with a recollection of what his father had told him of her relinquished European trip.

"Yes, I am narrow to the last degree. I have never been out of my native State."

Jack eyed the girl with admiring compassion.

"You've never even seen a hill, Clover."

"Never,—excepting the one in Lincoln Park."

Jack laughed. "Which was carted there in wagons," he added.

"The things I've never done, and never seen, would fill a large volume," went on the girl, her soft hair, golden in the sunlight, blowing into a halo around her forehead, as she leaned on her elbow among the cushions; "but then I'm not sure I shouldn't be as homesick, if I went away, as May Frisbie was last summer. Do you remember, while she was in Switzerland, she wrote home: 'For real scenery give me Illinois!' Ah, here is some Lake Michigan!" for a dancing noisy wave had leaped above the gunwale, a few spoonfuls vaulting saucily into the girl's lap.

"Pardon me, Clover. It is too bad; but we will be inside in a minute. Sorry we had to be cut short in our career."

"Never mind, we've sailed while we sailed,—not dawdled along."

"And you will come with me again soon, I hope."

White-crested billows pursued them to the narrow opening in the breakwater, as, wind-buffeted, the little craft entered the harbor.

When they landed, Jack left the boat-house janitor to take down his sails, Clover put on her hat, and they walked up to the road together.

"All this time and not a word of congratulation," began Jack gayly, as they started toward home.

Clover met his eyes with a quick, glad turn of her head, relieved from the suspicion that had been filling her with apprehension; and impulsively she put out her hand.

Her companion clasped it. "Well, better late than never," he said.

"I am so glad!" she returned, low and excitedly, "I was afraid you didn't know it,—that perhaps your father hadn't told you of our engagement."

"What! You engaged, Clover?" returned Jack in great astonishment, pausing in his walk. "Why, of course I didn't know it." He shook her passive hand again, and started on. "I haven't had a chance for any talk with father yet, for when I dropped in at the office, this morning, he had some old duffer with him. I only meant just now to fish for congratulations for myself, that my grind is over. I've been receiving a lot of them lately, you know. Excuse the egotism. Now I understand why you have seemed to have something on your mind this afternoon. I do congratulate him most heartily, whoever he is. He's a happy man. Do I know him?"

Jack saw his companion turn pale to her lips, as he asked the question, and her eyes amazed him by their piteous wistfulness as she raised them to his.

"I have made a great—a great mistake to speak," she returned faintly, "but I thought from what you said—and I hoped so you would not object! He is," eagerly, "oh, he is happy, Jack. It is your father."

The young man stared blankly into the white face, then his own turned red. Through all the tan of seashore sun she could see the color rise, and as the affectionate interest that had shone from his expressive eyes gave place to a violent revulsion of feeling, it seemed to her that a physical coldness crept around her heart.

"This is news to me," he said in a voice she did not know. "I—I wouldn't have believed it of you, Clover."

The girl winced. The contempt of her old playfellow was the severest blow she had ever had to bear. She walked fast under the stress of feeling, and her companion kept pace with her.

"This is why she refused the Breckinridge invitation," thought Van Tassel hotly. "My poor, generous, blind father."

They kept silence for half a block, then Clover spoke again, recovered calmness in her pale face.

"Your father said that if we were honest with each other, we should not do wrong," she said clearly, "and we have been very honest. He loves me. He wants to take all my cares upon himself. Nearly all our means of subsistence has recently been taken from us, and I was bewildered and helpless when Mr. Van Tassel came to me with his love and generosity."

"An irresistible temptation, no doubt," replied Jack dryly.

"It was a great temptation. I have the future of three children in my care, with all my inexperience; but the keenest pang in my helplessness was mother's condition."

"You are honest; if you were equally so with my father, I do not wonder it occurred to his great heart to do as he has done."

The hot blood flew to Clover's cheeks. "You are wrong to insult me," she said, controlling herself with heroic effort, for her hurt youth longed to seek relief in flight instead of waiting to parley. "You will soon know that Mr. Van Tassel loves me; and—and"—suddenly turning suppliant, "when he told me so, and represented all that he could do for me if I would consent to marry him, why should I have refused? I did not know it would make you so angry, Jack, and," with eager explanation, "I do not care for anybody."

Her companion gave a short laugh. "A nice lookout for my father," he said curtly.

"You will not understand—you will not approve!" she said passionately, in a low voice that began to tremble. They were nearing her home now. "It is hard for you; perhaps it is wrong to you. So far as my own happiness goes, I could give it all up for your sake, for your rights are to be considered. Ah, there is mother in the window. She sees you, Jack!"

The white head behind the window-pane inclined, and Van Tassel mechanically lifted his hat.

"Do you see the peaceful look in her face?" went on the girl's unsteady voice. "She has only looked like that since yesterday. No," with new strength, and no supplication in her manner as she unconsciously drew herself up, "I will not waver. Say what you please to me. Think what you will of me; I can have but one thought, I must have but one, and that is—mother!"

Van Tassel lifted his hat once more, as to a stranger.

"Not one friendly word?" she asked desperately, her breath coming fast.

"What do you want?" asked the other. "That I should wish you prosperity?"

"You surely do not wish me ill, Jack?"

"You have just declared your intention not to consider me. What can my wishes be to you? My only course is to efface myself," and without another word of farewell Van Tassel bowed, and, turning on his heel, hurried away up the street.

CHAPTER V.

MISS BERRY'S VISITORS.

Miss Lovina Berry stood on the stone doorstep of her square, white house early one evening soon after the scene narrated in the last chapter. The elm growing in her yard would have put to shame those so carefully tended in front of the Van Tassel mansion a thousand miles away, and more of the noble trees stood outside the white picket fence and shaded the country road.

The flowers in her carefully weeded garden were homely and wholesome, like her own placid face, as she stood, elbows in her hands, regarding the neighbor who was in the act of departing from her hospitable roof.

"You're sure 't won't inconvenience you a mite, Loviny?" asked the latter, folding a brown paper parcel beneath her shawl as her anxious upturned face met Miss Berry's benevolent gaze. "You won't need the pattern this week?"

"No, I sha'n't need it this week," answered Lovina pleasantly; then, as the other started off contentedly toward the little white gate, she added in an equable, unvexed undertone: "but if I want it any time within two months I shall have to come after it, that I know. There ain't anybody slacker 'n you be, Ann Getchell, from one end o' Pearfield to the other." Miss Berry continued to watch contemplatively the woman whom she had characterized with such passionless severity, and suddenly she saw her stoop.

"Your posies do smell so good, Loviny," Miss Getchell called back. "I s'pose you don't care if I take some old man?"

Miss Berry smiled, and stepping deliberately off the stone advanced toward her guest. "Take any old man you can get, Ann. I wouldn't lay a straw in your way."

"That's an old joke, Loviny," returned the other with a sniff, breaking a piece of the feathery stuff with its pungent sweet odor, while her hostess with generous hand gathered the best the garden afforded, and tying the nosegay with a bit of striped grass, bestowed it upon the visitor, who buried her nose in its depths.

"You're just as much of an old maid as I be, you know," added Miss Getchell with an upward look.

"Just exactly, Ann. I don't know but more; more set in that direction, as it were."

Miss Lovina's lips twitched a little as she rested her arms on the gate after her guest had gone out, but all her neighbors had reason to know that the milk of human kindness became cream in her case, and Ann Getchell had too often benefited by its richness to feel less than content now. Indeed, as she turned a curve in the country road and hugged closer her brown paper parcel, she soliloquized with much satisfaction:—

"I wasn't sure she'd let me have it. Loviny always does set so much store by what Mis' Page sends her, and that dollman has got a style to it that I hain't seen anywhere else. I can get it out o' my old gray poplin, I'm next to certain. Them spots don't show hardly at all on the other side—Why, Mr. Gorham!" The spinster started back with a short, shrill screech. "What a turn you did give me! Why," clutching the left side of her dress waist, "I'm all of a tremble. You riz up so unexpected from behind that rock that I—law! I can't hardly stand up."

The young man who had thus rudely interrupted an absorbing sunset dream looked upon the ostentatiously perturbed speaker with some trouble in his absent gaze.

"Pardon me, Miss Getchell. The evening is so beautiful, I had thrown myself down in the grass there to listen to the thrushes, and that moment happened to decide I must be moving. I did not hear your soft tread approaching."

Over Miss Ann's agitated countenance there stole a gratified expression. This reference to her soft tread had a pleasing sound. It was characteristic of this young man to appear to compliment when no proceeding was further from his thoughts. More worldly-wise and charming women than Miss Getchell had been similarly misled by him. Nature in mischievous mood had added to his muscular physique the features of a hero of romance, and launched him, a practical joke, upon society.

The little woman tilted her thin head to one side with an arch air, and lifted her sharp-nosed face toward his pensive eyes.

"Ain't it a coincidence I should 'a' met up with you just now? I've got a pattern under my arm this minute that your sister'n law sent Loviny Berry. I didn't know as you was in town."

Her companion was anxious to pass on; but sense of duty forbade. He had startled Miss Ann. It would be uncivil to leave her abruptly.

"I have but just arrived. I've come down for a flying visit to Miss Berry."

"Jus' so. I've jus' come from there, as I said. You hain't been down in years, have you?"

"It is a long time for me to stay away from Pearfield. Good"—

"Loviny didn't say a word about expectin' you," said Miss Ann curiously. "Do you still like lawyerin'?"

"Yes, I like it. Good evening, Miss Getchell." He lifted his hat; then as though compunction prompted the act, he advanced a step and shook Miss Ann's limp hand. He was recalling that she had been kind to him in a past when the quality of apples was not material, and the fruit on her gnarly little trees had seemed desirable.

"Good evenin'," she answered. "Come and see me if you're stayin' long enough."

"Thank you. I return to Boston almost immediately."

The young man pursued his way, relieved to be free again to give all his attention to the soft summer sky where the light was fading; to the bird-notes which were becoming disconnected and dreamy; to the scents which rose gratefully from willows, and the thorny luxuriance of vines that rioted over the stone wall at the roadside.

Miss Berry was still lingering at her gate when he approached the house. She dropped her hands from her elbows and grasped the pickets of the fence at sight of the face under the lifted hat.

"Why, Mr. Gorham!" she exclaimed, and opened the gate, her countenance alight with pleased surprise. "I was just thinkin' about you this minute, as I was standin' here."

"Naturally. I was a coming event, and I cast my shadow before."

The visitor shook the plump offered hand with no abstraction now in his eyes, and his teeth gleamed beneath his mustache. "I've no doubt I can tell what you were thinking about, too."

"Like enough. I s'pose lawyers know everything. Come into the house," said Miss Lovina hospitably.

"Not yet. It is far too pleasant here. Where is that old settee that used to be under the oriole elm? Why, there it is, of course, only pushed to the other side," and the speaker started for the desired haven.

"Come back, come back, Gorham Page. Don't you wade through the wet grass!" exclaimed Miss Berry imperatively.

Her visitor turned around, laughing. "That sounds natural, Aunt Love," he said.

"Well, perhaps it does," replied the other in half-laughing apology; "but haven't you learned good sense yet? The dew's a-fallin', and that grass ought to been mowed last week."

"Do you remember when I used to mow it for you?"

"I remember when you used to promise to," rejoined Miss Berry, the corners of her mouth still twitching. "Look here. I ain't goin' under that elm to set with my feet in the water."

"All right," replied Page, succumbing with a sigh, and casting a glance toward the graceful branches of the tallest elm, behind which the new moon glimmered in a primrose sky. "What an evening!" he ejaculated.

"'M; dewy though," returned Miss Berry.

"I do like those old trees," said her guest slowly, continuing to gaze.

"So do the mosquitoes," replied Miss Berry inflexibly. "Come up on to the stoop."

Page, with a smile of amusement, followed his hostess to the piazza, where she ensconced him in one rocking chair, and herself in another.

"Do the orioles still hold possession of that elm?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad of that. The rest of the world may change, and must; but I'm jealous of a hair's breadth of change in Pearfield."

"Well, I don't know. The hang-birds squabble a good deal," remarked Miss Lovina impartially.

Her guest laughed again. The fact being that very few things in life moved him to laughter, he was enjoying himself hugely.

"You are too practical; too unsentimental, Aunt Love," he asserted argumentatively.

"Too unsentimental, hey?" responded Miss Berry, folding her hands over the white apron that protected her striped gingham gown. "That's pretty good from you. What does it mean? Have you repented o' your singular ways, and been fallin' in love?"

"Oh, yes," responded the other, more seriously; then added simply, as though stating an undeniable fact, "I am always falling in love."

"Then why don't you get married?" asked Miss Lovina bluntly. "I haven't heard a thing about you in so long, I didn't know but what you was married, only I hadn't received any cake. I didn't believe you'd forget me."

"No," said Page. "If I could be as loyal to any girl as I am to you, Aunt Love, I should certainly ask her if she would have me."

"But if you fall in love?" asked Miss Berry, perplexed.

"The trouble is I don't stay in love," explained Page with simple sincerity. "I can't help forgetting about the young lady in a little while. It really makes me blue sometimes. Now this summer at Bar Harbor I met a girl who was remarkably pleasant. Pretty, clever, a good talker. Her tastes and mine coincided. My mind was full of her when I left the place."

"Have you heard from her since?" asked Miss Berry with interest. This certainly sounded encouraging.

"Oh yes. I have sent her candy and flowers and books from time to time," responded Page, beginning to look serious and abstracted.

"Then you write to each other?"

"Yes, oh yes, we do—yes. Come to think of it, though," Page gave a short uncomfortable laugh, "I believe I never answered her last letter. I've forgotten. I must look it up when I get back to town, if I can remember it. Aunt Love," brightening, "are those scalloped cookies still in the tin box?"

"Child! You haven't had any supper!" Miss Berry sprang to her feet with astonishing celerity, her plumpness considered.

The guest also rose. "Yes I have, but I want a cookie."

"Then I'll get it for you."

"No, no; that would spoil everything." Page took his hostess by her plump, comfortable arms and forced her back into her seat.

"There ain't a bit o' light in there," remarked Miss Berry resignedly.

"That was the condition of things when my aim for the cookies used to be most unerring," returned the visitor, disappearing into the house.

He returned shortly, carrying in one hand a cookie which already had lost from its side a generous semicircle, and in the other a round, deep tin box which he placed at an impartial distance between his own chair and Miss Lovina's.

"Those are not my usual cookies," stated the latter, meditatively regarding the box as her guest settled himself with a sigh of content.

Page smiled. "That's all right," he answered. "You know they never were."

"Now I deny it, Gorham Page," rejoined Miss Berry warmly. "I was never one to make excuses all the time, and you can't say I was; not truthfully you can't."

"These are exactly right, anyway," returned the other calmly. "There never was a cookie outside this house that tasted as good."

"Oh now, that's silly, Mr. Gorham," returned Miss Berry with a pleased smile.

"No, it is sound sense. I feel old, and tired of things very often. If I could only get hold of one of these at such moments, I should be young again in a minute, with an appetite for everything. If you should some day receive a telegram asking for a cookie, you may know that I need to be rejuvenated, and mail me one at once."

"Have you forgotten my currant wine?" asked Miss Berry radiantly.

"Well, I guess not! But you never let me know where you kept that."

His hostess laughed. "No sir, indeed I didn't. You set where you are, and I'll fetch it out."

She was as good as her word, and in a short time a little table stood at Page's elbow, and upon it a bottle and two glasses.

"I am sure I'm a big boy now," he laughed, as he poured the wine, "since you trust me with this. I well remember the half glasses you used to give me as a treat. How many summers did we come here, Aunt Love?"

"Pretty near every year after you was ten years old till you went to college."

A little silence fell between them, for it was that summer before Page's collegiate life began that his mother bade him a last good-by upstairs in this very house, in the low-ceiled chamber where the branches of the oriole elm cast their shadow.

"How's your cousin Jack? I wonder if he remembers Pearfield too," continued Miss Berry.

"Indeed he does. He graduated from Harvard this year, and of course I attended the Commencement. He asked for you, and I told him I didn't know half as much about you as I ought to; so when your business letter reached me last week, I determined to answer it in person, and I hope you will pardon what was unbusinesslike delay, for I could not arrange to come at once."

"I feel as though I"—Miss Berry was beginning diffidently, when a small dark whirlwind rattled the tin cake box, jostled the table, and leaped frantically against Miss Lovina's arm, upsetting some drops of wine upon the clean white apron.

"Get out! get down! Your paws are dirty!" she exclaimed, emphasizing her unflattering protests with slaps at the panting, bounding, shaggy terrier, who at last seated himself for an instant on his stump of a tail, before rising to take a minute survey of the visitor's pantaloons.

"Oh, you nuisance!" apostrophized Miss Lovina, wiping up the wine drops with her handkerchief. "He's been to get the cow with Obed. He goes every night, and he always races home like a mad thing, just as though it had come over him up in the pastur' that p'raps I'd give him the slip and go off somewheres without him. No sir, don't you touch that cookie box!" for the terrier's eyes were gleaming through the mat of hair, and his mobile nose worked hungrily, first toward Page's hand, and then toward the base of supplies.

"H'm! He evidently knows those cookies, and agrees with my estimate of them," said the young man, breaking a piece and offering it to the dog as he returned alertly from Miss Berry's vigorous push. The creature swallowed the morsel, and at each mouthful Page took thereafter, became convulsed throughout his rough body, then planted his four feet firmly and expectantly, and emitted a little bark. "This is an innovation," continued the guest. "Pearfield does move, it seems, after all."

"Oh, well," sighed Miss Lovina, lifting the cookie box to a safe perch on the table, "it's none o' my doin'. Since the last season you spent here I haven't made it any reg'lar thing to keep summer boarders; but last year a lady was here with her children, and nurse, and this dog. They had him new for a plaything for the children, and they was too little to like him. He's the livest thing, Blitzen is, that ever walked, anyway. No, I ain't talkin' to you. Keep down! And he scared the children with his wild ways. The upshot of it was, they all went off and left him on my hands. Mrs. Siddall said it was so much trouble to travel with him that if he bothered me I might give him away to somebody in the village. Humph! That was all very well to say. I've given him to four folks already."

Page smiled and gave the dog another mouthful. "Wise Blitzen. He knows which side his bread is buttered on," was his comment.

"He wouldn't stay tied up, nor shut up, no more 'n a witch," continued Miss Berry, "and every time he'd come back, he looked rougher than the last time; and when he'd catch sight o' me, he'd act foolish and actually laugh. It's a fact. He'd grin till he showed every tooth in his head. Of course I gave in at last. I had to. He's a knowin' critter," sighed Miss Lovina; "he knows everything on earth only just that I don't want him. He's set out to deny that, and he'll stick to it."

"He seems to be a fine dog of his kind," said Page.

"Yes. They said he cost a lot o' money," returned Miss Berry, regarding the terrier dubiously. "I did think though, first off, that I should never get to tell quick which was which end of him. He hasn't got tail enough to wag, and he's so rough and queer he's given me a start many a time barkin' in the direction I didn't expect. What were we talkin' about when Blitzen broke in?"

"I was asking pardon for my delay in responding about your business matter. I told you when I met you at the gate that I knew you were thinking, as you stood there, that it was strange that I should be neglectful of you."

"Well, I wasn't. I was wonderin' if I'd done the right thing to bother you about the matter anyway."

"Decidedly you did. It is a problem I can solve for you with very little trouble, I'm sure, if you will show me the papers you spoke of. I have robbed the tin box shamefully and the light has gone; supposing we go into the house and talk the matter over. My time in Pearfield is limited. I sail for Germany next Saturday, and I have considerable to do between now and then."

"Well, if you ain't clever to me," said Miss Berry gratefully, as she rose and led the way into the house, while Page followed with the impedimenta of box and bottle, and the further embarrassment of Blitzen, who writhed ingeniously about his legs, evidently intending to make clear his adherence to one who could command cake at such an astonishing time and place.

CHAPTER VI.

THE UNEXPECTED GUEST.

Miss Berry's legal question was at last disposed of. Page carefully mapped out a plan of action for her, and explained each detail with painstaking kindness.

"You are clever to me, Mr. Gorham," she repeated gratefully, when all was made clear. "Now I want to pay you exactly as any of your clients would," she added, in a business-like tone.

"You can't," he answered, throwing himself back in his chair, "for they don't any of them make such cookies as you do."

"Now please don't joke," she begged, half-laughing. "You've had the cookies already."

"Of course, just a retaining fee as it were. Blitzen and I want some more before I go to bed."

"But such an obligation," pleaded Miss Berry.

"Such a pleasure, Aunt Love," rejoined her lawyer. "Now, to change the subject, what is Pearfield's opinion about the World's Fair? Where do you think it ought to be held?"

"I don't know enough about the different cities to say," returned Miss Berry. "I see by the papers some o' the Western cities think they have as good a right as anybody. Chicago is after it. Such an idea! As though folks want to have to traipse way across the country to see the Fair. I don't know much about public questions," continued Miss Lovina, complacently smoothing her apron, "but I know enough to see that there ain't any sense in that notion, and reasonable folks won't listen to it; not but what Chicago's a good deal of a city, I s'pose."

"Chicagoans have that idea," answered Page, smiling. "I have a friend who recently returned from Europe; and he says that one day in the boat's music-room he found on the table a book purporting to portray only Chicago and its suburbs. There were pictures in it of Niagara Falls and the Yellowstone Park."

"Do tell!" exclaimed Miss Berry, laughing. "Well, where do you want the Fair to be, Mr. Gorham?"

"Oh, I feel as though New York were the proper place. I think it is the general feeling that it would be a risk to trust a matter like that to Chicago. There has been a very clever cartoon published recently in New York, showing our principal cities represented as pretty women standing in a semicircle around Uncle Sam waiting to see which shall receive a bouquet which he holds in his hands labeled 'World's Fair,'—that is, they are all pretty women except Chicago, who is a half-grown, scrawny girl, arrayed in an evening gown covered with a pattern of little pigs. She has huge diamonds blazing in her breast and ears, her thin arms are bare, and the hands she wildly stretches out to Uncle Sam wear white kid gloves with one button at the wrist. Her mouth is wide open, and she is evidently vociferously demanding the prize, while New York, a beautiful society girl, gazes at her with well-bred scorn. For my own part, I think New York may overdo the nonchalant business, and if she does, the energetic maiden stands a good chance to gain her end."

"How do you suppose your cousin Jack likes to have his city made such game of?" asked Miss Lovina.

"Oh, I fancy Jack has learned by this time to view the Garden City from a Bostonian standpoint. I don't know what his views are on the subject of the Fair. I have seen very little of him the last years."

"You are liable to make up for it in the year to come," said a new voice suddenly.

Blitzen had already run growling toward a window, and now barked furiously as Jack Van Tassel walked into the room and Miss Lovina and her guest sprang to their feet.

"Forgive the intrusion," added the new-comer, in the handshaking that ensued. "I looked through the window and saw you sitting here so comfortably, I thought it a pity to make you the trouble of coming to the door. Aunt Love, how are you? You didn't expect to see me here, Gorham?"

"Where have you dropped from? You were in Chicago day before yesterday," rejoined his cousin.

"I don't deny it. Thank you, Aunt Love. I used to like this rocking chair when my feet wouldn't touch the floor as I sat in it. What do I see? If there isn't the cookie box!"

"Yes, and you're in great luck to come as soon as you have, for I was just meditating another onslaught upon it."

"Well, if you two great boys ain't as bad as you ever were!" exclaimed Miss Berry in high delight, as she hastened to bring forth the currant wine again for the delectation of her new guest.

"Perhaps you will explain yourself," remarked Page curiously, hospitably reaching out the tin box and meanwhile making attempts to hold Blitzen off with his foot; an effort which met the success attendant on similar treatment of quicksilver.

"Why, I've come to see Aunt Love," responded Jack. "Why shouldn't I?"

Miss Berry looked at his brilliant, graceful face and figure admiringly. "Why not, indeed?" she said, laughing. "I was always good to you, wasn't I, Mr. Jack?"

"Too good. Far too good. I remember everything."

"That is all very well; but why did you bid me a long farewell a week ago, and then turn around and come back again?" persisted Page.

Jack tossed off a glass of wine. "Better than ever!" he exclaimed, sending Miss Berry one of the caressing, admiring looks which warmed any feminine heart toward which they were directed. Then he turned to his cousin. "Because, my dear Gorham, I have repented of my rejection of your offer, and after I've talked over old times sufficiently with Aunt Love, it is my intention to accompany you to Germany. Do you accept my apology?"

"Good enough," commented Page briefly, but with evident satisfaction. "Your decision must have been sudden, though. What was the matter? Did Chicago grate upon your æsthetic sense in her scramble for the Fair?"

"She isn't scrambling, that I know of. She doesn't need to. She'll get the Fair all right. Any one can see with half an eye that Chicago is the only place for it,—the foreordained place."

Page laughed quietly and skeptically, and there followed one of the arguments of which every American citizen knows the pros and cons.

That night Miss Berry put her unexpected guests into two bedrooms which communicated. When her last good wishes for their comfort had been expressed and good-nights said, the two men looked at each other as they listened to her retreating footsteps.

"Of course," said Page, "if the explanation you gave me downstairs is all you care to say, I'm satisfied."

The brightness had faded from Van Tassel's face. He looked moody and worn.

"No, I meant to tell you, of course," he answered, seating himself on the side of the bed. "I found when I reached home that father had assumed charge of an orphan asylum, and I thought I should be better off out of the way."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say. He is going to marry the eldest member, in order to facilitate matters."

"Uncle Richard is going to marry again, and you have quarreled with him?"

Jack shook his head quickly. "I don't quarrel with father," he replied briefly.

Page sat down in a blue chintz armchair by the window and pushed open the blind; then recollecting that one of Aunt Love's last warnings had been not to do so on account of mosquitoes, he closed it again.

"Uncle Richard has been a widower for fifteen years," he said. "He is scarcely over fifty years old. Aren't you unreasonable to resent his marrying?"

Van Tassel, his sombre eyes fixed on the palm-leaves in the ingrain carpet, emitted an inarticulate sound.

"What more appropriate," continued his cousin, "than that he should select a widow, even supposing she has children. He has plenty of money. I can see how it would make you feel sore and change your home feeling at first; but Uncle Richard has such a level head, you may be certain that the lady is such a one as you will like after a time."

Jack gave a short, unmirthful laugh. "The lady hasn't any children. What a pity you can't see her! She is a little girl who went to school with me at home; and she has an invalid mother, some younger sisters, and a brother on her hands."

Page raised his heavy eyebrows and gave a soft whistle.

"As they have nothing in the world, they have roped father in."

"That's bad!" admitted the older man with some sympathetic disgust. "Then you have quarreled with Uncle Richard, for of course you attempted to dissuade him."

"Not at all. I arrived home to find the engagement a fixed fact and all the parties satisfied. What was there to be done?"

"You didn't come away without saying anything?"

"No, no. I wouldn't do that, and I believe that in place of anything else to be proud of, I shall always be proud of having had some self-control in that last interview with father. I knew all the time, hot and angry as I was, that if I said to him what I felt, I should repent of hurting him all my life. He is the noblest man, the best father, that ever lived." The speaker's eyes grew bright, and Page believed it was with moisture.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," he rejoined heartily. "You are right, I know. Uncle Richard is one man in a thousand, and it would be easy enough to believe that even a young girl might feel a deep and romantic attachment for him."

Van Tassel shook his head. "You are all off again. Say all you like in praise of father, but"—

"But why be prejudiced?" suggested Page hopefully. "This Miss—Miss"—

"Bryant."

"Why should you, on the circumstantial evidence of her family's need, decide that she is only mercenary? Perhaps she loves"—

"And perhaps she doesn't," interrupted Jack impatiently. "She says she doesn't."

"What?"

"Yes, Clover is a very honest girl, and she was good enough to inform me of the neutral state of her affections."

"Well, well! I must say Uncle Richard is beginning to puzzle me. He has seen this girl grow up. Is she so irresistibly beautiful?"

"What an idea! No. My father puzzles me too, I assure you, but I must believe he loves her, and in the face of that, Gorham," Van Tassel looked up with strong feeling in face and voice, "that dear old fellow made sure that he wouldn't be interfering with me before he spoke to her. He came to me just before leaving Cambridge, and asked me if I cared for her. Of course I didn't suspect anything. It seemed only a consistent carrying out of the desire he has always had to anticipate my every wish. He urged nothing, but persisted gently till he discovered what he was after; and I tell you it touches me—in the light of present circumstances it touches me to think about it. He would have given up his wishes; no one would ever have been allowed to suspect them, had they conflicted with mine." The speaker rose, crossed the room, and stood with his back to his cousin, while he regarded the antlered cows in a framed sampler executed by Miss Lovina's mother.

"No wonder you are glad that you said nothing offensive at parting," remarked Page.

"Yes," replied Jack, turning back. "I have been in twenty different minds since taking the train for Boston, as to whether I do right or wrong to go to Europe now. Very few words passed between father and me about it. I had some hours to think before meeting him, after learning what he had done, and I merely told him that Clover had told me of their engagement. He looked right at me and he understands me pretty well. 'Does it displease you, Jack?' he asked. 'It surprises me, sir,' I answered, 'and it makes me feel that while matters are in the transition state which is coming, I might perhaps as well put in that year abroad you spoke of.' He was silent for a minute, and I knew that, try as I might, I couldn't mislead him much as to my feelings, so I braced up and spoke as naturally as I could, about how deeply I desired his happiness, and said that if my staying at home would conduce to it, I would stay. He thought a minute more, and then he said as quietly as he always says everything, 'You had better go, Jack.'"

The speaker paid one more visit to the sampler with its angular green trees.

After a minute Page broke the silence: "I believe you have decided wisely. I believe you had better come with me."